By Sharik Malik | Youthkiawaaz.Com
For perhaps the first time in 100 years, smartphones and devices are changing the way children learn. At this time, due to the Corona crisis, smartphones and devices have emerged as the primary means of learning in the temporary absence of physical class.
In the process, students are exploring new ways to create a learning path for themselves. Presently now learning is becoming student centric and children are starting the process of learning on their own.
A research by The Harvard School of Graduate Education suggests that student-centered learning creates learners who learn throughout life. It also covers the needs of every student in the classroom. This suggests that when students have more control over their learning, they become more interested in learning and look for new ways to satisfy their thirst for knowledge.
When children use their curiosity to understand the world, their learning remains and has a greater impact. The latter also helps them a lot in shaping their professional lives.
The largest education system in the world is in our country, so preparing Indian youth for employment should be our main task in the country. With nearly 260 million school enrollments, we have the potential to be the world’s largest youth force, yet we need to do some ground preparation to reap the benefits of this demographic.
It will be very important that how do we shape our education system and empower the youth in the coming decade. Only this will ensure the economic prosperity of the country.
According to the recent India Skill Report, less than 47% of the students in the country are currently employable. One of the main reasons for this is that the curriculum of our education is designed in the view of examinations. Students are being trained to answer questions.
What The Ed-Tech Industry Could Do Better
When children sit in exams with the aim of scoring marks, they become dependent on memorization and eventually forget their learning. On the other hand, if children experience what they learn, they understand concepts better and their marks come automatically. The education tech industry can do some work to make children love learning.
1. Changing Role Of Teachers
By providing the basis of learning to the students, teachers are also actively involved in the learning process of the students. In a mixed learning environment, teachers can better guide students by working together on projects and other tasks.
This will enable teachers to teach their students more effectively. In this way, class room learning can also be more effective for the students and students can actively participate in the learning process there as well.
With the changing times of the present, the role of the teacher will change from just giving lectures and marks to the students and guiding and encouraging the students. This will also have a positive impact on the youth workforce.
2. Student-Centric Education
One of the big advantages of digital medium is personalisation, that is, making things ready by making changes according to the need. Personalization makes students more involved in their learning journey, as they get the opportunity to learn according to their own style.
Such a technique can grab the attention of every student. With online learning, every student has a chance to be the front seat student. There is a lot of potential to be the beneficiary of personalization in the existing school education system. Learning will now have to move away from a one-way-for-all system, as it leads to different outcomes of the same learning.
3. Inculcating Desire To Learn
When students learn on their own, they are more eager to understand concepts. Online learning platforms are creating an ecosystem for this, where children love to learn. The main way of doing this is to make the content interesting, which will attract the students towards learning.
Teachers can also teach students using technology tools like animations, gamified elements and storytelling through videos and pictures. The result will be that when young learners come out of school and join the work force, they will have the urge to keep learning, constantly acquire new skills, so that they will be able to perform well in their jobs. This will improve the work force of the country.
Now the overall assessment of the performance of the students can also be done more closely. The strengths and weaknesses of the student can be continuously monitored. This helps the students a lot to develop themselves continuously.
Along with this, instead of low marks in them, the urge to learn increases further. Research suggests that continuous assessment is a better method for measuring learning outcomes for students than periodic examinations, as exams tend to have the same questions for all students, even if their learning abilities vary. Why not be different?